The present invention relates to a reproduction apparatus capable of reproducing view data including a plurality of tracks in an operation to reproduce the data from the tracks at a track count according to its own reproduction processing capacity.
In the production of video content, special effects are utilized in order to present a plurality of pieces of information, bring about a change to a screen changeover and protect privacy on screens. As editing techniques utilizing the special effects, there are a method of recording view data, to which the special effects have been applied, onto a recording medium, and a method whereby original view data is recorded as it is on a recording medium along with a processing procedure for special effects and, at a reproduction time, the original view data is processed in accordance with the processing procedure for the special effects in order to reproduce the special effects. The latter method is specially referred to as a non-destructive editing process. This editing method can be implemented by using application software such as Quick Time, which is referred to hereafter simply as QT.
In the non-destructive editing process, not only can the special effects be applied to an image, but superimposition of characters and graphics can also be described in a QT file format. To be more specific, it is possible to record onto a recording medium the distinction among special effects, characters and graphics in addition to the start time, end time and the ID of an image to be added by the special effects in the QT file format. Then, in a reproduction process, a special effect of a specified type or the like can be applied to a specified image before displaying the image at a specified time on a display unit. Thus, the editor is capable of reproducing an image exhibiting the same special effect as the one added in the editing process.
By the way, in such a non-destructive editing process, information including a large number of special effects and characters may be superposed on the original image data in some cases. In such cases, since the information, such as the numerous special effects, must be superposed at the same time on the original image data, the limit of the reproduction processing capacity of the reproduction apparatus per unit time may be exceeded. If the reproduction apparatus makes an attempt to reproduce all information such as the special effects applied to the original image in spite of the fact that the limit of the reproduction processing capacity has been exceeded, there will be raised a problem such as an uneven reproduced image or a lost frame.
It is thus an object of the present invention addressing the problem described above to provide a reproduction apparatus capable of reproducing view data properly within the range of the reproduction processing capacity of the reproduction apparatus by selectively narrowing display objects down to information such as special effects to be superposed at the same time on an original image on a priority basis within the range of the reproduction processing capacity.